#11 How to Avoid Overgrazing with Total Grazing

Welcome to this podcast of Real Wealth Ranching where our goal is to help you reach maximum profitability while your land improves the fastest.

I am Jim Elizondo and today I will speak about how to use Total grazing to increase our productivity and stocking rate while at the same time make sure we avoid overgrazing that does so much harm to pastures and ranges.

Many cattlemen confuse overgrazing with an efficient harvest by the cows. Nothing further from the truth, we need to consider how the plant functions and how livestock graze if we allow them to do their will. When we leave livestock in a paddock for more than one day, they start to select the best species and parts of plants that they prefer. This means that the best or desirable species will be consumed all the way down to the ground and the undesirable species will be avoided allowing them to take over your field. We need to remember that plants compete above ground for sunlight and below ground for nutrients and water. Besides, some of them secrete toxic compounds that inhibit the development of their competitors which helps them become dominant if they are not taken down by grazing the same as the more desirable species.

Let’s start by defining what is overgrazing, this is important as we have been given a wrong definition. Overgrazing happens when an individual plant is re grazed BEFORE it has fully recovered. Is not the same as Total grazing, where if a correct rest period has been given, promotes leaf production and a better leaf to stem ratio that allows the plant to be more productive, increasing humus production, and creating fat roots full of energy reserves!

Under Total grazing we try to achieve the highest harvest efficiency possible and in practice achieve 80-90% harvest efficiency. This is very high as when forage is machine cut, they obtain less harvest efficiency than that.

The rest period, at a given stocking rate, depends on harvest efficiency of the grazing. This is best measured as cow/days harvested per grazing.

We also need to know that doing selective grazing our livestock needs to come back to re graze sooner to the same field or paddock which creates overgrazing when forage growth slows down if we use the high stocking rates required for profitability these days. We also know that a field or paddock with longer rest periods produces more forage than with shorter rest periods. 

Under selective grazing, where only around 30% of the available forage is harvested this means you only harvest a third of the cow/days possible.

Let’s consider the consequences of this.

Under selective grazing, the grazing method most used, by definition, a lower quantity of forage or grass is harvested compared to Total grazing, normally 30-50% less.

The harvested cow/days per acre in each ranch or farm, determines how many days of rest there are between that grazing and the next when the herd returns, which is the rest period.

By harvesting up to 90% of the available forage it gives us a rest period which is 3 times longer than by only harvesting 30% of the available forage. When we have a high stocking rate, which is necessary for profitability, the herd returns to re graze the first paddock before it has fully recovered in a dry year. In these dry years they start to create bare soil areas in dry environments and a change in species composition from desirable to undesirable in more humid environments.

Under total grazing, this doesn’t occur, and we can defer whole paddocks of the property, thanks to the longer rest periods that gives us higher productivity even in dry years. My students at Total Grazing school understand this very well and have increased their productivity per year.

There is more, by avoiding overgrazing forage roots turn fatter and deeper which creates resiliency and higher grass productivity every year that we do this total grazing and in the deferred paddocks we give a longer time for the soil to return to be spongy and the better forage species to return and reproduce.

This is impossible to achieve under selective grazing at the very high stocking rates required for profitability nowadays.

If you are one of my students, you have already observed this in your fields or paddocks.

Would you like to achieve the same?

High stocking rates, double of what can be achieved with selective grazing the first year beside higher forage productivity in dry years and the peace of mind of knowing that you have a forage reserve in area, where the best forage species are thriving, humus is increasing, and the soil starts to turn spongy enabling it to retain more rainfall and allow the correct gas interchange for an even higher future productivity.

It can be done and its being done, you only need to change some definitions and be a good observer. And remember, always but always maintain your livestock in good body condition as a fat cow can give you profits while a thin cow only brings pity.

Conclusion or take away points

1. Overgrazing means re grazing an individual plant before it has fully recovered.

2. Total grazing avoids overgrazing even at very high stocking rates thanks to a longer rest period which allows our best forage species to attain maximum productivity.

3. Competition between desirable and undesirable plants takes place above and below ground. Therefore, it is important that all plants are grazed down to the same level.

4. The number of cow/days harvested per grazing event determines, in a real farm or ranch, how long is the rest period.

5. This allows us to defer whole paddocks as standing hay for the difficult seasons, this is much cheaper than feeding out stored forages like hay or silage.

6. Our future productivity increases thanks to the increase in humus and best desirable species coming back. And even more, by achieving a higher number of growing points per square yard.

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